CaptainDoony
I can understand your frustration. I think the challenge is not so much are the said routes you mention viable or profitable. The question increasingly is with airlines, what markets can we make the most from the aircraft and a route such as say ABZ AGP is fairly long sector and most of a day is gone when the flight is completed. I think this will be more the case going forward as airlines consolidate and like in the UK there are just less and less airlines as time goes by. so many names vanishing from the scene. Would eligible airlines such as Jet2 consider it based on a limited enough flying program when they see opportunities around population centres such as MAN, EMA etc areas where opportunities have arisen with the immiminent closure of bmibaby etc
My guess would be that if a local airline came about it would be the best vehicle to serve ABZ better with the right size of aircraft, a niche could be created that few other airlines would go after. Perhaps bmi regional will unveil plans for such routes and aircraft in due course. as it stands it seems that they havent made clear what their strategy will be etc.
Just my thoughts on the subject.